Oh, England, England, if I had a voice whose clarion tones could reach your ears and stir your hearts in every city and town, village and hamlet, wayside cot and stately castle, in all your sea-encircled isle, I would cry to you to guard your coasts!  Better, it seems to me, writing here, with all the evidences of war beneath my eyes, that every man born of woman’s love on British soil should die between the decks, or find a grave in foundering ships of war, than that the foot of a foreign foe should touch the Motherland.  Better that your ships be shambles, where men could die like men, sending Nelson’s royal message all along the armoured line; better that our best and bravest found a grave where grey waves curl towards our coastline, than that our womanhood should look with woe-encircled eyes into the wolfish mouth of war.  Better that our strong men perished, with the brine and ocean breezes playing freshly on the gaping wounds through which their souls passed outward, than that our little maids and tiny, tender babes should face the unutterable shame, the anguish, and the suffering of a war within our borders.

Do not laugh the very thought to scorn and brand the thing impossible, for fools have laughed before to-day whilst kingdoms tottered to their fall You who stay at home miss much that others know—­and, knowing, dread.  If England at this hour could only realise what manner of men control her destinies, then all the lion in the breed would spring to life again.  I do not know if lack-brains of a similar strain control the supplies for England’s Navy; but if, in time of war, it proves to be the case, then God help us, God help the old flag and the stout hearts who fight for it.

Lend me your ears, and let me tell you how our army in Africa is treated by the incompetent people in the good city of London.  I pledge my word, as a man and a journalist, that every written word is true.  I will add nothing, nor detract from, nor set down aught in malice.  If my statements are proven false, then let me be scourged with the tongue and pen of scorn from every decent Briton’s home and hearth for ever after, for he who lies about his country at such an hour as this is of all traitors the vilest.  I will deal now particularly with the men who are acting under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Leslie Rundle.  This good soldier and courteous gentleman has to hold a frontage line from Winburg, via Senekal, almost to the borders of Basutoland.  His whole front, extending nearly a hundred miles, is constantly threatened by an active, dashing, determined enemy, an enemy who knows the country far better than an English fox-hunting squire knows the ground he hunts over season after season.  To hold this vast line intact General Rundle has to march from point to point as his scouts warn him of the movements of the tireless foe.  He has stationed portions of his forces at given points along this line, and his personal work is to march rapidly with small bodies