In my second watch, in the small hours, a Tommy with a water-cart strayed into our lines, asking for the Boer prisoners, for whom he had been sent to get water.  He swore copiously at the nature of his job in particular, and at war in general.  I showed him the way, and consoled him with tobacco.

August 1.—­Grazing and harness-cleaning all day.  More prisoners came in, and also our old friends the Munsters, and General Paget.  Rumours galore.  We are going to Cape Town with the prisoners; to Harrismith; to Winberg; to the Transvaal on another campaign, etc.  Definite orders came to move the next morning.  In the evening an unusual flood of odds and ends of rations was poured on us; flour, a little biscuit, a little fat for cooking, diminutive hot potatoes, a taste of goose, commandeered the same day by the mounted gunners, a little butter from the same source, besides the usual sugar, cooked meat, and tea.  Drawing from this cornucopia was a hard evening’s work.  We also got hold of some dried fruit-chips, and as a desperate experiment tried to make a fruit pudding, wrapping the fruit in a jacket of dough and baking it in fat in our pot.  The result, seen in the dark, was a formless black mass, very doughy and fatty; but with oases of palatable matter.

CHAPTER IX.

TO PRETORIA.

August 2.—­Reveille at six.  Harnessed up, and started out to join the brigade and its long column of prisoners, mounted on their ponies, and each leading another with a pack on it.  We only went about seven miles (back towards the Nek), and camped at midday.  I had been suffering from toothache for some days, and was goaded into asking the doctor to remove the offender.  He borrowed a forceps from the R.A.M.C. and had it out in a minute.  The most simple and satisfactory visit to the dentist I have ever had.  No gloomy fingering of the illustrated papers, while you wait your turn with the other doomed wretches, no horrible accessories of padded chair and ominous professional plant; just the open sunny veldt, and a waggon pole to sit on!  In the evening I got some 38th fellows to cook us some chupatties of our flour.  They treated me to fried liver over their fire, and we had a jolly talk.  It is said that we are to take the prisoners to Winberg, and then go to the Transvaal.  Cold night; hard frost.

August 3.—­Reveille at six.  Sunrise this day was peculiarly beautiful; a milky-blue haze lay in festoons along the hills, and through this the sun shot a delicate flush on the rocks and grassy slopes, till the farther side of the valley looked unreal as a dream.