of soldiers on the veldt. Breakfast over, most of us linger at the table. Under it at one end is a packing-case filled with newspapers and pictorial weeklies.

A subaltern shouts aloud with joy, as he stirs up the collection and brings to view an Illustrated Mail that he had not seen before. The rest of us look for papers we have not seen, but no such luck is to come to any of us, and so we fall to with our tongues.

"Shop" is almost our only theme. Sometimes we get well on with a conversation of other sorts, but invariably a new-comer drops in and says that our balloon is being sent up, or the new 47 gun has come, and-off we go upon the war. To-day, for a change, we get up an uncommon strong interest in a new subject-sports for New Year's Day. That I take it is a topic that never fell flat in a British company.

The work of the regiment goes on during Christmas as on every other day. The piquets go out, relieving those who are to come in. The men are taken to bathe in the river, even a detachment is sent to help the Engineers in building a trench.

Some of us, who are not Tommies, go for a ride with the colonel, or stroll over to hear the

best of the Scotch pipers play, or if we read a novel

or write a letter, these things only show that in solemn truth all there is to be of Christmas is the dinner and our thoughts of home.

Suddenly there is a tremendous cheering, like that of the Israelites of old shouting some city's walls to ruins, like what there is to be when the Boers and British come to the end of this argument. I rush from my tent to see all the regiment drawn up before its camp-and all the Black Watch before their camp-and all the Argylls across the railway drawn up in battalion formation in front of their tents-and all cheering.

Why, every man there in khaki is out and cheering. "What's it all about?" I ask. "They're cheering the Queen"-a beautiful annual custom of which I confess I'd never heard. Her Majesty's greeting arrives on the moment, and when it has been read it is cheered with yet another mighty ringing roar.

And so we come to lunch in our windy, dusty, and hot rendezvous, and pleasantry and good spirits flow among us, for we have all been thrilled by that outburst of cheers.

Ah, here is the general now," says Colonel Barter, and leaves us to go out upon the veldt

and welcome Pole-Carew and his aide, smartly dressed, alert, soldierly in face and bearing, glance and speech. He has come to visit each company at dinner, and give the season's greeting to the men. He goes down the line to the end tent of each row, where the sergeants are eating. He looks into each tent door, and says he hopes they are having a good dinner, and he wishes them a merry Christmas. He varies the words from place to place, but never the sentiment. hears there is pudding, and it is shown to him. He says he is sorry the Royal chocolate did not come, and that he regrets there is no beer to be had. Always the men struggle to rise, and each time he says, "no, please sit still," or "don't get. up."

He

This kindly ceremony over, there is only dinner to look forward to. If it does not blow or rain we know that all is certain to go well. The elements prove kindly, the pudding is perfect, the coffee and Benedictine taste like nectar, and all are now so cheery and near to the Christmas spirit that it is an hour later than usual when the little band of brother braves scatters in the darkness and the desert dirt.

CHAPTER XXIII

TRAITS OF MODERN BATTLE

WAR

AR has as many faces and phases as Dame Fortune herself. For weeks we of Lord Methuen's force were aptly described as a flying column-a flying and fighting column we were, leaping northward, and dealing blows right and left as we coursed.

We were not sure of our meals in those days; in fact, we were more nearly certain of not getting them. We came to a pause after the fight on the Modder, but the fever was still on us, and presently "up and at them was the cry, and we fought the biggest battle of all four at Maaghersfontein.

After that the wind went out of our sails, and we waited for a new supply of men and munitions. We seemed to have leased this little watering

place from the Kimberley folk, whose holiday or health retreat it used to be.

If we used cards in the army we would have had new ones printed with this address. We made ourselves at home here. A market had been established for us, and we had fresh eggs and genuine milk, new vegetables and butter, to say nothing of formal dinners to our generals and our friends from other messes. Books came into camp, and we read and lent them around.

Our horses were used only for afternoon rides, and there were even men among us who fished at times in the river-which in other respects had become a laundry and a horse trough, where the foot soldiers washed their khaki, and the troopers watered their steeds.

I would not risk giving any one the idea that we were idle. I believe time was that soldiers lounged and dawdled a great deal-hence the term "sojering" applied to a lazy mechanic who avoids hard work. But those were not even nineteenth-century soldiers, and here we were within hail of the twentieth century. No, we truly thought that we were having an easy time, but the term was merely comparative. Tommy had to take his turn at picket duty-one night in four