Clements is not dead, and Delarey and his friends are not captured.
I am telling you the latest rumours and anti-rumours, as this letter
progresses.
And yet the man I had the first version from had had it from an R.A.M.C.
Sergeant, who had it on the most reliable authority of the commandant's
orderly, who had heard the commandant tell it to the P.M.O. He had also
been corroborated by a man who had seen the man who took it down from
the heliograph. Also one of the hospital runners had heard Dr. ---- tell
Dr. ----, and a friend of his had a friend who knew a man on the
officers' mess, who had seen it up in orders, distinctly.
A Tommy came in just now and said "Hullo, Corporal!" I shook his flipper
weakly and tried the dodge of pretending to recognise him. But I had to
give it up, and admit I could not for the moment recognise him, and
thought he had made a mistake. To which he replied he had not, and
didn't I remember the soap. I did.
About two months or more ago, having halted at mid-day at some fontein
or other _en route_ for Rustenburg, Whiteing and I went down to the
nearest stream to have the usual wash. There we found heaps of fellows
washing; but, alas! there was a great dearth of soap. A Northumberland
man asked me if I could sell him some, and I gave him a small chunk. The
demand was great, and there was practically no supply. When we got back
to our lines, Whiteing, ever forgetful, discovered he had left his
precious brown Windsor behind. It was too late to go back to try and
find it, so he gave up all hopes of ever seeing it again. The next day,
as we were riding through the infantry advance guard of the Border
Regiment, one of the fellows shouted to me, asking if I had lost any
soap the day before. I replied "No," and then recollected Whiteing's
loss added that a friend of mine had. My infantry friend thereupon
promised to bring it round in the evening, which he did. In this manner
we became acquainted with him. I mention this incident just to show what
a really good sportsman the true Thomas is. Here was soap in great
request: we were strangers to him, having merely chatted with him and
the others as we washed in the mud and water, and yet, without our even
making enquiries for the precious lump, he went out of his way to return
it.
I asked him why he had come into the hospital, and he told me he and
several others had been sent in as unfit for the veldt, and so were
to act as hospital orderlies. When I inquired how he liked the idea,
he said it was all right, as he was clear of the horrible
"hundred-and-fifty," and he laid his hands significantly where the
pouches are wont to decorate the waist of the poor infantryman.
[_Note._--I suppose you know the infantryman's cross is the hated
150 rounds in the two pouches, which after many miles marching
become most irksome, especially for the muscles of the stomach.]
I, of course, inquired after Nobby, but he could not tell me anything
about him, as Nobby is in "H" Company and his was "B."
To-day (the 16th) a large number of fellows are leaving here for the
base and, the rumour is--_home_.
[Illustration: Got his ticket.
"See that fellow?"
"Yes."
"He's 'marked for home.'"
"Lucky Beggar!"]
The P.M.O. asked a Yeomanry friend yesterday if he would like to go home
or join his squadron, and the Yeoman's reply was he would like to rejoin
his squadron--at home. In explanation, he smilingly stated that all of
his squadron's officers, bar one, had gone home, and nearly all the
squadron, having been invalided or discharged. Well, I think this is
long enough for a letter written by a man who can hardly claim to be "on
active service" just at present.