ng
strangely clean. The air was heavy with rich brogue. Later we strolled
off, and shopped and shaved in the town, had afternoon tea, and then
went to a hotel and wrote letters till 6.30, when we dined in
magnificent style, and then sauntered back, feeling as if an eternity
had passed, and lay down in the dust to sleep.

"_June 17._--_Sunday._--A night and day of rain, in spite of the fact
that everybody was clear hitherto that the rainy season was over
months ago. Exercise at eight, and a smart trot round the country
warmed horses and men, for it is very cold. Meanwhile, the horse lines
had been shifted, for they were ankle-deep in mud. Once or twice in
the day we were called out to rub legs, ears, and backs of the horses.

"I am now lying on my back in our tent on a carefully constructed
couch of sacks, rugs, and haversacks, with a candle stuck in a
Worcester sauce bottle to light me. Most of us are doing the same, so
the view is that of the soles of muddy boots against strong light, the
tentpole in the middle hung thick with water-bottles, helmets, and
haversacks, spurs strung up round the brailing, faces (dirty) seen
dimly in the gloom beneath. Some write, some sew, some read. One is
muttering maledictions over a tin of treacle he has spilt on his bed
(he thought it was empty and stuck a candle on the bottom); one is
telling stories (which nobody listens to) of happy sprees in far-off
London. The air is thick with tobacco-smoke. Outside there is a murmur
of stablemen trying to fit shrunk nose-bags on to restive horses,
varied by the squeal and thump of an Argentine, as he gets home in the
ribs of a neighbour who has been fed before him."

On the day after this was written our long period of waiting came to
an end with orders to go at once to Kroonstadt.

CHAPTER V.

LINDLEY.

We were off for the front at last, and I shall now, making a few
necessary alterations, transcribe my diary, as I wrote it from day to
day and often hour to hour, under all sorts of varying conditions.

_June 21._--_7 A.M._--I am writing this on the seat of a gun in an
open truck on the way by rail to Kroonstadt. I have been trying to
sleep on the floor, but it wasn't a success, owing to frozen feet. Now
the sun is up and banishing the hoar-frost from the veldt, and the
great lonely pasture-plain we are travelling slowly through looks
wonderfully pleasant.

But I must go back.

Yesterday afternoon things looked profoundly se