Winburg may have all the elements of greatness; but greatness itself
is lacking. Nevertheless, after watching a convoy train tool along
over the green-flecked yellow veldt at the rate of six miles a day,
after seeing nothing but an occasional isolated farmhouse, the
little town appeared like a centre of civilization and excitement to
the bored troopers, as they rode up the main street and pitched camp
on the western edge of the town. There they sat and idly wondered
behind which particular hill was the largest commando. No type of
boredom is more acute than that which links itself with periods of
inaction in the army. Fifteen minutes would have sufficed to exhaust
the resources of Winburg; the troopers remained there for fifteen
days. Only Kruger Bobs was fully in his element. His daily grooming
of the broncho and his master once over, his time was his own, and
he employed it to the best of his ability. Fate had endowed Kruger
Bobs with a smile which won instant liking and gained instant
fulfilment of his wishes. Just as, months before, he had sat on the
river bank at Piquetberg Road, and grinned persuasively at the jam
tins, so now he ranged up and down among the farms scattered about
Winburg, and grinned himself into possession of manifold eggs and
plump fowls and even of soft wheat bread, the final luxury of the
biscuit-sated trooper who owned his fealty.
"'Is thy servant a dog?'" Carew had quoted gravely at sight of his
first army biscuit.