One of our duties at this time was the providing of an escort to the
water ration that left Luderitzbucht each morning for Kolmanskoppe.
The water was taken in mule-drawn trolleys along the railway line (we
possessed no other "rolling stock" at that time) and as it was the sole
supply of the two infantry regiments stationed there, extreme care had
to be taken to prevent its being intercepted by a stray German patrol.
On October 7, No. 3 Troop had supplied the convoy, and we, whose turn
it was to do so on the morrow, had spent the greater part of the day
in the sweet frame of mind that is bred by camp fatigues, and at
four o'clock in the afternoon were waiting for the order to "break
away" from a squadron drill that seemed as if it would never end. The
other troops had dismissed long ago, and we asked ourselves with some
bitterness why we should be kept out in the heat and sand playing at
circuses, and all the while the sharp words of command stabbed through
the curtain of dust that followed us, and punctuated our grumbling. "On
the left fo-orm troop!" Some one, hand-jostled by a section in rear,
cursed aloud, and we laughed as we went forward at the picturesque
phrase he had used. "Sections right!" The sand-fog rose more thickly
about us. Was this farce never going to end? "Ha-alt!" Ah! This was the
order for which we had been waiting. The "dismiss" would follow, and
there was still time if we hurried for a bathe before evening stables.
But our O.C. had apparently forgotten us. He was gazing with something
of an air of abstraction at a soldierly horseman making towards us from
the direction of the camp.
There was nothing really extraordinary in the sight of that figure (we
could recognize him, by the big, upstanding gray that he rode, as the
Colonel's orderly), yet something--his obvious hurry perhaps--made us
forget our anxiety to be dismissed.
A minute later he had pulled up before our troop leader. "Colonel
D----n's compliments, sir! and you are to report to him at once!" And
then, in the confidential tone that orderlies learn from their constant
association with the higher ranks: "Water guard, sir!" I could just
catch the words: "... German patrol ... one ... chap wounded.... What's
that, sir?... Yes, one of our fellows."
"Sections right! Wa-alk 'arch! Tr-r-ot!" There was life in the order
this time, and there was life, too, in our quick response. The horses
even seemed to be infected, and we had to hold them a little as we
pounded along in the wake of the news-bringer.
"Steady, there! Ye don't want to ride the sentries down, do ye?" The
camp buildings had leaped out at us from the yellow haze of our own
progress, and the corporal of the guard had flattened himself against
a wall--just in time. We pulled up and rode in soberly. Men of other
troops dashed at us and held our horses. "Lucky devils!" they said,
and bade us get our bandoliers and rifles. From them we learned that
a German patrol had lain in wait for the water convoy at a point some
three miles up the line, had potted one of our men through the thigh,
and had retired without our fellows being able to fire a shot in
exchange, and now, we--"lucky 4," they called us--were going out to
hunt them. "And I don't suppose they've gone far," one informed me. "I
expect they'll be waiting for you, an' p'raps they'll shoot one of you.
I know I hope they will--you lucky, lucky devils!"
Into the press of chaff and counter-chaff, and the excitement of
straps and buckles, rode one, speaking with the large voice of small
authority, and hung about with "the complete campaigner's outfit." Not
a detail--if we except the camp-stretcher and the cork-mattress--was
missing. Water-bottle, haversack, prismatic compass, field-glasses,
first-aid outfit, and sand goggles--the White Knight again!
As a quick-change artist he should have commanded our ready admiration.
As it was, he provided just that sobering touch of humor that we
needed. "Goin' to take all week to get ready?" he queried with that
heavy urbanity which N.C.O.'s and stage managers mistake for satire,
"... passel o' ladies' maids!"
"Oh! you--you May queen!" I heard some one say, and the troop giggled
helplessly as we swung into our saddles. "Number off from the right!"
the order was barked at us.
"One"--"two"--"three"----. The fourth man was having trouble with his
pony and was far too busy to think of mere numbers, and the White
Knight glared down the line of us as if, in some way, just outside his
comprehension, we were all to blame. "As you were!" he snapped--it
sounded like "Zwear!" "Number off from the ri----" "No time for that
now, Sergeant!" spoke the crisp voice of the O.C. from somewhere behind
us. "Sections left! Walk! march! Tr-r-ot!" and the quick dust rose to
the forward surge of horses and men, and we were off.
Five minutes later we had passed the outlying pickets of the Transvaal
Scottish, and were kicking up the sand at a good hand-canter along
the hill-girt railway line to Kolmanskuppe. There is a peculiar
exhilaration in this form of sport (I cannot easily use the term
"warfare" in regard to a game wherein all that is ordinarily known as
"patriotism" is swallowed up and lost in a wholesome, primal, man's
desire to hunt man--the royalist of royal game--for the sake, only,
of the game's lust), and if in G.S.W. we were rather like the famous
American hunter who had never been known to kill anything, but who
"just hunted"--well, such little killing as did come our way proved
conclusively that "just hunting" held all the breathless joy of the
thing and left no--aftertaste.
For some miles we held our pace, and the heavy, springless sand through
which we rode flung its yellow veil about us. There was the sound of
wind in our ears, and the creaking of saddle-leather, a vague surging
noise, as of a heavy ground-swell sucking through rocks, and, over all,
the choking, blinding pall of dust. An oath, back-flung from a leading
section where a horse had stumbled, sounded smothered and unreal. Now
and again an outcrop of bare granite would leap out to meet us, and the
brief thunder of our passing would shout back from the echoing hills;
then sand again, and its muffled tumult.